With A Little Help From My Friends

September 28, 2007

Anybody ever read Ursula Le Guin's "The Lathe of Heaven"? In this novel, the main character discovers that whatever he dreams becomes reality. When he goes to a psychiatrist about this, the shrink finds that it's true and starts restructuring the universe to his own wishes by using hypnosis and manipulating the main character's dreams.

It's a "monkey's paw" kind of story, though. The shrink tells him to dream things like the end of war on earth. Sure enough, there's an end of war on earth--because aliens attack earth, so now the war is in outer space. He tells him to dream about eliminate racial hatred and sure enough, all races are eliminated--there's now just one shade of gray among everybody.

Anyway, at one point in the novel, the main character enters a used record store (if it was something else, excuse me, it's been a long time), which is run by one of the aliens, who have now integrated into earth society. The alien knows who he is--you created us, after all--and offers him a Beatles album, which in this case would be "The Yellow Submarine" or at least a single of "With A Little Help From My Friends."

[just as a bit of trivia, I had a Yellow Submarine lunch box when I was in elementary school. Can you imagine how much that would be worth now in mint condition?]

This "friends" thing is somewhat on my mind because I've started a MySpace page and been fussing around with my Crimespace page.

http://crimespace.ning.com/profile/markterry

and

www.myspace.com/markterrybooks

If you're a member of either, drop by and become my friend. What the hell, can't hurt.

There is, actually, a point to this post. If you stop by here regularly, I would like to ask a favor of you, my friends here.

If you've read any of my books, I would like you to send an e-mail to five of your friends who you think might like my books. Just say, hey, have you heard of this guy? I really loved his book. (Or whatever you felt). You should check out his website: www.markterrybooks.com.

Or something like that.

That's my favor. If you have a blog and want to do the same thing there, please do. If you have a blog and would like me to be a guest blogger, e-mail me and we'll work something out.

By the same token, if you have a book out and would like me to mention it here on my blog, contact me.

If you would like me to let 5 of my friends know about your book, just ask. If I haven't read your book, I'll try to work something out.

Y'see? The book business is pretty tough. I could use a little help from my friends.

Cheers,

Mark Terry